Friday, August 6, 2010

Your Kink Is Not My Kink (And Your Kink Is Pretty Fucked Up)

I had an upsetting conversation today with a guy. It started out with him just complimenting my tummy and round cheeks, actually rather charmingly. I have no problem enjoying a certain symbiosis with chubby chasers--I'm kinda chubby, they like chubby, and so goes the great Circle of Life.

Then he started talking about feeding me cake. Hey, cake, fine by me. Cake's good. I realize this is a part of the fat thing, but if me eating cake turns your weird pervert crank, well... that's not exactly a painful and demanding fetish, is it now?

Then he started talking about wanting to feed me so much all the time that I got to be huge and couldn't leave the house and he would just take care of me all the time because I would be so huge I would be helpless. He started talking about this very seriously, emphasizing several times that it was "a lifestyle, not a fantasy."

WHOA WHOA WHOA SHIT JUST GOT WEIRD.

I have this thing about people who have impractical fantasies and won't acknowledge that they're fantasy. If you acknowledge it, that's okay; I'll eat your cake and lie on your couch for an afternoon and we can play all "wow, I fed you so much you can't move, now let's have amazing sex." And after the amazing sex I will go back to eating lentil soup and walking several miles a day because c'mon, I've got my own life. But if you refuse to acknowledge the fourth wall here, if you continually insist that you really want to make me really unable to move... you creep the fuck out of me.

Maybe it's just a communication failure. I get the feeling that saying "no, it's really for real" is part of the fantasy, and I'm being too stubbornly literal by not going along with that. (Although even in this case, he's still the asshole for not being able to step out of character long enough to explain this.)

Or fuck, maybe not. Maybe he really does want to give me goddamn bedsores. In which case, dammit, he shouldn't have gotten quite so put out and "you're being mean" when I told him that was creepy. Because it is creepy. Maybe I'm closed-minded, but I don't think I can say that wanting to literally cripple someone is a okay kink. He was talking about functionally ending my life--making me unable to enjoy the outdoors, to work outside the home, to visit friends--fuck. To say nothing of what happens to the skin and general bodily function of an immobile person.

There's people out there who think what I do isn't okay. I'm sensitive to that. I know how it feels. I know that proper kink etiquette is to say "If you find a girl who consents to that and enjoys it, mazel tov to ya both." But I just couldn't. I kept thinking about all the bedsores I've seen. Some had things living in them. I told him as much.

I really hate to say something is not okay. It's not my life or my business. But fuck, man, bedsores.

This is definitely what I consider "a fetish too far." Pretending all manner of fucked up shit, whatever, but feederism in Real! True! Life! seems impossible to separate from systematic control and abuse. Maybe some feedee could chime in about how it's awesome for her, but I can't see it as anything other than convincing another person that she's disgusting and deserves the degradation you serve up and then reveling in that total degradation. Ick.

Holly, you said what was wrong with this and you're right; it's not play. Most kinks are problematic at least if they move from fantasy to lifestyle.

To take my kinks for an example, a relationship where sex, deliberately degrading sex, was only granted after real honest begging would be seriously destructive; and I can't imagine that occasionally switching off roles would help that in the least. Some of yours would make you the victim of the worst of crimes if they weren't play.

Feeders are one of the few fetishes where I go, "...bzuh? Why is that hot?" So that probably colors my opinion.

But still. He's talking about devoting your entire life to your kink. That's not balanced at all. I mean, even in a 24/7 BDSM relationship (I think-- I've never actually been in one) it's not "this worthless worm begs for permission to breathe" all the time, right? Occasionally you just want to go see a movie.

And what squicks me about this is that you don't get to just go see a movie.

Forced feeding till infirmity just falls off my kink radar. I feel it to be creepy in the same way that I might find a hypothetical kink of "tying you up so you can't move, IVing food and water, and leaving you like that forever, coming in to take care of you, of course" except it seems that the kink possessor in question here doesn't recognize the loss of agency involved.

Related to the YKIOK topic, I wonder if anyone has had to reconcile a rational "what you do behind closed doors is your business" with a visceral "NO NO NO THAT'S BAD OH GOD NO" reaction to any kink, and how that fared.

lxr said, Related to the YKIOK topic, I wonder if anyone has had to reconcile a rational "what you do behind closed doors is your business" with a visceral "NO NO NO THAT'S BAD OH GOD NO" reaction to any kink, and how that fared.

Well, I come from a pretty vanilla world, and I also have an unusually serious visceral hatred of rapists (probably tied in with my phobia of helplessness). And "NO NO NO THAT'S BAD OH GOD NO" is exactly how I reacted to the idea of anyone even pretending to be a rapist in clear consenting play. It's reinforced by a leftover from observations of tabletop RPGers; the ones in my group that consistently played evil characters were more than a little off in real life, and I have a theory that humans are good enough at being evil and shouldn't practice at it.

How that fared? Reading Holly has gotten me over that to a considerable extent, (yay Holly), but finding out somebody consistently likes to play rapist is still a tick in my suspicious column. Recognizing this prejudice along with general ignorance of the means and procedures is why I left it to others to discuss consent issues in the big orgy discussion (was commenting as Mousie00).

I never had the same kind of reaction to the person who plays the rapee, though I thought it would tend to lead to a series of bad boyfriends.

Ozymandias - In my (very limited) experience, most working 24/7 BDSM relationships have a lot more "honey could you pass the salt" than "worthless worm" in them. Not that the dynamic isn't there or isn't real, but it's a dynamic being lived by humans in a relationship, not by perpetually horny cartoon characters.

Mousie - Interesting, because I have no problem with rape play--partly because it winds my pervert crank, but mostly because it's clearly distinguishable as play. It only happens sometimes and it's something that negotiation and safewords apply to.

I would not, however, be interested in living the Real True Rape Lifestyle where the guy could just jump right into rape any time he wanted. That would be a whole lot more like, you know, rape rape.

"Then he started talking about wanting to feed me so much all the time that I got to be huge and couldn't leave the house and he would just take care of me all the time because I would be so huge I would be helpless."

Scary shit, yo. Most of the rest of that is kind of bizarre, but generally tolerable. But that bit right there has a very creepy, subtle undertone of "I want to own you." I guess that's what we're kind of getting at in the discussion, but that part just...ugh. It raised a red flag for me as a potential possessive partner (which I can't stand).

Holly-- Right. That was what I figured. And the bit of this I find creeptastic is that you basically have to be a horny cartoon character? Because bedsores are not so much fun for actual human beings in an actual relationship.

I think the main problem is "dude, you're confusing reality and porn again."

Well said...everyone has their kinks, but everyone has their boundaries, and going from being able to enthusiastically consent to "let's pretend" for an evening, a day, a week, whatever is a far cry from devoting your life to it, especially if it's someone else's kink. I think the guy sounded like he started out the convo ok but got a little too intense/too creepy rather fast...I probably would have been squicked out worse than you did, Holly...sounds like you handled it pretty well, actually :)

I do feel somewhat bad for people with unrealizable kinks...it's really hard to find a person who is willing to be "it" for you first and foremost in their lives, and I try to be openminded and think that there might be people who really find their purpose primarily in fulfilling the dreams of others, but to me that doesn't sound very healthy.

I can't find the link now, but there was a big discussion of this on some of the fat acceptance blogs back when the story about the woman trying to become the world's fattest was in the news. A lot of people are totally skeeved out by it, and part of that is because it seems like a big part of the turn on for many feeders is creating an utterly dependent feedee - so fat they can't leave the house, convinced their so disgusting nobody else would want them, etc. To me, that's really toeing the line over into creepy abusive behavior rather than kink.

Just my 2 cents, but I am a large woman, and have been approached by a couple guys with that kink before. For some reason, many of them get really hostile when you tell them you're not into it, and act like they're doing you a favor and the only guys who'd date or sleep with a fat chick must share their fetish. In a way, it reminds me of the way some people incorporate racial slurs/scenarios into some interracial d/s relationships - that creeps me out too, because it can feed off of and into too many real life prejudices.

This is one of those kinks that bothers me (although my partners routinely accuse me -- and my mom -- of being feeders :) ). The health risks, the complete loss of life options (what if you break up with your feeder? Do you just die in the house after that?), and so on -- not for me. I suspect that a fair percentage of the people into this one have significant mental health issues, although to be fair folks would say the same about myself, my partners, Holly, etc. If I were appointed Overlord Of The World's Fetishes and everyone had to justify their fetishes to me to be able to engage in them, this is one where they'd have to jump through a few more hoops (mental health testing, contingency planning, etc.) before I'd allow it. That said, I'm kinda glad I'm not Overlord Of The World's Fetishes, because I wouldn't enjoy living on that slippery slope.

There's nothing wrong with moving from play to lifestyle; as with anything else, you just need to be reasonable (chacun à son goût for defining that, too).

Regarding 'working 24/7 BDSM relationships,' Holly has it right. First, they're 24/7, and aren't, can't be, play (physical or mental) for the entire 24/7 ("Hmmm, would Master want me to step to the right or to the left of that person ahead of me at Walmart? And what about this one? And now this one?"). Second, the largest part of a 24/7 BDSM relationship is the D/s part, not the physical play. And third, they're relationships -- which, if healthy, involve love and caring along withe infliction of pain and humiliation and whatever else works for the two humna beings involved.

Maybe YKIOK, but if YKINMK, it's not OK to assume I'm going to gratify yours. (Generic "you", of course.)

Feederism squicks me, but not really any more than, say, some of the 24/7 TPE relationships I've heard of. If the feedee gives fully-informed/risk-aware (bedsores and all) consent, it's none of my business.

One bit that is my business is that THIS IS NOT FAT ACCEPTANCE, and it pisses me right off when practitioners of feederism try to hitch a ride on the FA bandwagon.

Um, as someone with a lot of home-care experience, and also with experience in a relationship with a differently-abled large woman whom I'm trying to keep as mobile and active as possible, SQUICK.

I should probably not get on my rape-play soapbox here because I'm probably as consent-grouchy as you can get and still be allowed to post here, but I think that negotiating and safe-wording almost anything (except for the German cannibal case) "safes" pretty much anything, just as any firearm, even those with just a trigger safety or no mechanical safety at all, can be safed, if you know how. Bad metaphor?

I dunno, I'm the cranky no-fun lady who thinks this "lifestyle" doesn't just creep up to or toe the line of going from play to abuse, it races right over it. The entire scenario is rendering someone totally dependent in a way that their future consent is basically obviated and their life made utterly and completely about the fetishist- who is at least physically capable of walking away from it at any time and I get the impression that's part of the turn-on.

Would it be okay for someone in a 24/7 D/s relationship to hobble their partner with a hammer to the ankles so they were wheelchair-bound and therefore they could keep them from ever running away? Even if the partner said yes?

Much as I hate the company this puts me in... I'm gonna go out there and say that not everything that turns someone on CAN be made safe or right. And yes, I was in the camp of "it's still murder" in the German cannibal case. *shrug*

zeeke-- I think you're on the wrong post? Because I'm pretty sure that disturbing fetishes aren't a symptom of polycystic ovarian syndrome. (If it is, shit, I might have that.)

Labrat-- Any kink can be made safe, as long as it stays inside your own skull or in written/cartoon porn shared with likeminded people. Feeders just need to join everyone else with fetishes that are immoral, can't reasonably be accomplished or completely defy the laws of physics.

I guess my boundary is: if you want to fantasize about smashing someone's ankles, write porn about smashing someone's ankles or even roleplay it without actually permanently harming anyone, that's fine. But literally hobbling people to a wheelchair pretty blatantly violates the 'sane' bit of 'safe, sane, consensual.'

Agreeing with LabRat here, what squicks me out about the feeder/feedee fetish is that at its extreme, it destroys the ability to withdraw consent.

In vanilla sex, somebody says "stop, pull out" and fun-time is over, and even somebody in a 24/7 d/s relationship can say "sorry honey, I think we should see other people"... but if one member of the relationship is rendered unable to leave by the fetish? Suddenly they don't have the power to withdraw consent, and that's scary.

As soon as anyone tells me that their thing is a lifestyle I'm the fuck out of there. I swear it's a fucking codeword for people I find too maladapted to spend time with, and that's without the social-conservative dogwhistle even.

But still. He's talking about devoting your entire life to your kink. That's not balanced at all. I mean, even in a 24/7 BDSM relationship (I think-- I've never actually been in one) it's not "this worthless worm begs for permission to breathe" all the time, right? Occasionally you just want to go see a movie.

In my 24/7 relationship, the first time "worthless worm" comes out would be the last.

Unfortunately, a lot of the feeders I've met (and yes, I would consider myself one) have an unrealistic or immature view of sex and kink. Many haven't really explored the kink world and I think what a lot of this could be summarized as naivete mingled with not always realizing the reality of what they'd like.

I just want to apologise on behalf of all the fat fetishists I know who don't know, or don't understand, or simply haven't thought of how "normal" people think of things. There are people who simply can't step outside their own head long enough to realize how creepy other people find them, and people who spend so much time in fetish-oriented communities that they've forgotten that people are still people with a sense of dignity and a set of values.

I'm sorry, you seem to have a much wider set of experiences than I do, and you're probably familiar with this sort of phenomenon. It's just that in the fat fetish community it's all mixed up with fat acceptance and self-image, and people come to think a deviant sexual preference they developed entirely by accident is somehow a sign of a virtuous, accepting character, as if they weren't objectifying a person's body as much as anyone out there.

Oh, and nobody particularly asked for this, but from my own personal experience, the (sick) thrill of a person who is conceptually too fat to do things is not that of dominance, not one of rendering someone helpless, but really just a simple desire to see someone really fat, which is more benign in intention, if not in actualization.

tl;dr version: I'm sorry you came into contact with such a creep, I'm sorry the "community" has a tendency to produce such creeps, and I promise you even the creeps aren't evil people, just short-sighted.

As someone with this fetish (or at least one that's similar, but hopefully way more practical and self-aware) i am actually a bit offended by this. Saying "I find that creepy and i don't want to do it," is fine. Passing judgment on someone who wants to do that with ANOTHER PERSON WHO ALSO WANTS TO DO IT is just not. It's not the life i'd choose for myself (like you, i'd rather keep it a fantasy/role-play scenario) but for someone, it may be a great life and they may be willing to take the consequences (such as bedsores). Sorry, i guess i'm just sensitive because owing to my involvement with Size Acceptance, i feel like i'm always having to go "oh yeah, we sure can be creepy at times, ha ha," "oh don't worry, i'm not one of those feeders" etc. Yeah, i know i choose to respond that way, but it's hard and the reason i became a fan of this site was because i thought since it was kink-positive, i'd be accepted here. Disappointing.

I am kink-positive! But I am bedsore-negative, and you know what, I'm going to stick to it.

I really have no problem with feederism. That's not my issue. My issue is wanting to physically incapacitate someone in real life. That, I'm going to keep having an issue with. Please don't take it as an attack on all feeders/feedees.